Sun Microsystems Announces Plans To Lay Off 6000 Workers

Tech Pioneer Sun Microsystems will reduce its workforce by 6000 - that's 18 percent of its global headcount - in a bid to save up to $800 million annually.

The announcement did not prevent the shares price of the company to fall dangerously close to the psychological barrier of USD 4.00 - at the time of writing, the company lost one percent - bringing the company's market capitalisation to USD 2.98 billion.

Sun also announced the departure of its software chief, Rich green, as sales of its high-end hardware froze with companies trying to cut back on IT expenditure.

Back last month, the company announced a USD 1.67 billion loss in the last quarter and will take a one time hit of $600 million.

And according to Cnet's Dan Farber, Sun is more exposed than most of its competitors (HP, IBM, Dell) to the economic downturn.

Plus the company is still unlikely to be purchased outright by venture capitalists or competitors because it has become so toxic.

But then, who can resist the lure of a company that has such a major presence in hardware and software with household names like Java, MySQL and Sparc.

The company lost 80 percent of its shares price since the beginning of the year while IBM has only shed 25 percent over the same period.

The company has over the last eight years lost 98.3 percent of its share price which back in the heydays reached more than USD 226.

Still, pony-tail Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's CEO, is adamant that his company will survive the downturn and be a key player in the the transition to cloud computing.